


Insomnia

by Fuinixe



Series: Febuwhump 2021 [6]
Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Aftermath of Violence, Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Hurt/Comfort, Insomnia, M/M, Mentioned Booker | Sebastien le Livre, POV Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani, Post-Betrayal, Post-Movie: The Old Guard (2020), Soft Dom Nicky | Nicolò di Genova, Whump
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-07
Updated: 2021-02-07
Packaged: 2021-03-12 08:02:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,727
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29257146
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fuinixe/pseuds/Fuinixe
Summary: Joe can't sleep after the events of the movie. Nicky helps him through it.
Relationships: Booker | Sebastien le Livre & Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani, Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Series: Febuwhump 2021 [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2143242
Comments: 18
Kudos: 112
Collections: febuwhump 2021





	Insomnia

Joe can’t sleep.

Every time he closes his eyes, he sees something else he doesn’t want to think about. Like his last view of Booker’s stupid face, squinting against the light reflecting off the Thames. _What a fucking metaphor,_ Joe thinks. _Narrowing his eyes, narrowing his field of view against the light. Against all the reasons he had to live._

Joe shifts into a new position, slowly, one limb at a time, so as not to wake Nicky. Nicky needs his sleep just as much as Joe does after their ordeal. From his back, he can see their alarm clock. It’s nearly 4 am. Joe sighs out through his nose and stares at the ceiling. If he falls asleep now, he might be able to squeeze in four hours of sleep before they have to catch their flight out of the UK. 

Joe closes his eyes. This time, behind his eyelids, it’s a gun barrel shoved in Nicky’s mouth, the slick of blood pooling out the back of his head. Joe wrests his heavy eyelids open again.

Booker put them in that situation. Booker. Their own brother. _Fuck._

Maybe Joe will be able to fall asleep on the plane.

* * *

Despite the twelve-hour-long flight, Joe can not sleep on the plane. In fact, he is practically vibrating in his seat, leg thrown out in the aisle so he doesn’t jostle the person in front of him, and he has to pull it back in every time somebody needs to walk past. Copley had assured them that at least half of their legal identities were still solid, including the ones under which they’d boarded the plane that morning, but Joe can’t bring himself to relax, and worse, he knows that it makes him look all the more suspicious to his fellow travelers, which just serves to ramp up his anxiety. Joe brings his thumb cuticle up to his mouth, a nervous habit he’d developed in the 16th century and successfully dropped in the 17th, but Nicky must not be as wholly absorbed in his book as he looks, for without looking up, his hand comes up to hold Joe’s before he can start chewing, and rests their clasped hands on Joe’s still knee.

“Nervous flier?” the flight attendant asks sympathetically when her meal cart reaches their row. Joe nods and makes an attempt to turn on the charm, although it feels painfully fake. He knows his appearance makes him a potential target, and they can not afford to be detained or questioned when they land. Joe doesn’t think he’d be able to handle that much extra stress right now with any grace.

When they finally land in Cape Town, Joe forces himself to wait patiently for the passengers ahead of them to disembark, spotting Nile’s braids swinging as she pulls her luggage down near the front of the plane. They’ll meet her and Andy at the car rental station. Nicky catches his eye and breathes in slowly through his nose, then out through his mouth. Joe mimics him for several breaths, and feels slightly better. They are 6000 miles from London now, in a different hemisphere. Maybe tonight, he can sleep.

* * *

They’re in the Jakkalsfontein safehouse and Joe can’t sleep. They didn’t even arrive until 1 am. It’s now 3:28, Nicky is fast asleep beside him, and Joe is weary down to his bones. He wonders where Booker is, right now. Where he went, after he left the pub. Has a sudden fear that he’ll never see him again, feels his heart seize in his chest at the thought, before he tells himself that Booker will be fine. Just ninety-nine years and 362 days, and he can see his best friend again.

Rage sweeps through him, hot on the heels of melancholy. Booker doesn’t deserve to be missed. He lied to all of them, kept secrets, nearly killed Andy _permanently._ He’s a disgusting traitor and Joe will not miss him. He refuses to miss him.

Joe’s eyes are itchy and dry as sand one minute, then the next, they’re filling up with tears, and the salt water burns and drips down the sides of his face, wets the fabric of the pillow case until it clings to his cheeks. He takes in a shuddering breath, tries to calm the sobs that threaten to shake out of him and wake his family. He doesn’t want them to know he’s reacting like this; he thinks it’s fucking ridiculous that he’s reacting like this. He has to be mad _for_ them. _Why_ weren’t they angrier? Who is going to be angry at Booker, protect them from Booker, if not for him?

That piece of shit could have turned them all into another Quynh-like horror story. How could he have done that?

Didn’t he love them?

Didn’t he love Joe?

Joe glares at the ceiling furiously until his tears dry up. God, he wants to sleep so badly. Forget about what has happened, just for a few hours. Forget that Andy could drop dead any second. Forget that Nicky was tortured just feet away from him. Forget that Booker got them turned into fucking science experiments because - why?

Because he wanted so badly to die?

Joe suppresses the sob that threatens to well up at that thought. Why hadn’t he told him? He knew Booker wasn’t happy, exactly, but he didn’t know he was _suicidal._

Why hadn’t he told Joe how bad it was? Was their entire relationship a farce?

When the first rays of sunlight come filtering through the dirty windows of their makeshift bedroom, Joe is still picking apart his fondest memories of his best friend. Nicky snuffles in his sleep and rolls over to drape an arm over Joe’s lower rib cage. Joe reaches up to pet his hair, absentmindedly. A few minutes later, Nile starts awake in the corner and rolls out of bed. She looks around the room, rubbing her eyes, and makes eye contact with Joe. He manages a small smile for her, and brings a finger to his lips. She nods and creeps out after tucking the corner of the blanket more firmly around Andy.

Normally Andy is the first of all of them to wake, but Joe expects she’ll sleep more, now that she’s mortal and healing from a gunshot wound to the abdomen. It’s a strange thought, Andy taking days instead of seconds to heal. No, not days - Andy could take _weeks_ to heal from this. Joe’s stomach twists at the thought.

An external door creaks as Nile steps out into their courtyard and Joe feels Nicky’s eyelashes brush his bare shoulder as he blinks awake slowly.

“Morning, _tesoro_ ,” he whispers.

“Good morning,” Nicky responds hoarsely. He presses a kiss to Joe’s shoulder and props himself up to look down at Joe’s face, examining him. “You did not sleep?”

Joe presses his lips together and shakes his head.

“That’s 48 hours now, darling.”

“Ah, longer. Not since the lab.” Nicky’s lips twitch downward in displeasure. Joe can see thoughts churning in his lovely eyes.

* * *

Nicky has a plan. He drags Joe on a morning run with him, then to the market to get food for the kitchen. They spend most of the day showing Nile how to triple-check the security in this safehouse and clean its weapons cache. Nicky cooks the richest dinner he can with their available ingredients, and while it’s in the oven, he makes Joe go on another run with him. Joe is dragging his feet on his way back, exhausted and struggling to keep up with his husband, but he knows that’s the point.

When his stomach is full of buttery food, Andy joins Nile in the washing up and Nicky leads Joe by the hand to the shower. They don’t linger, since the hot water heater is a piece of crap, but Nicky’s hands washing his back and ass efficiently still feel so good. They step out of the shower together and brush their teeth side by side, Joe leaning against Nicky, barely able to stand up on his own power. They retreat to the bedroom, and once Nicky has clothed him in a pair of old, soft sweatpants, Nicky leans against the wall, positioning Joe so that his head is in Nicky’s lap, and pulls the blankets up around them. Nicky’s palms cradle Joe’s face, stroking soothingly through his beard. His fingers caress along Joe’s neck. His thumbs linger on Joe’s temple and the junction of his jaw, rubbing muscle-melting circles against his tension.

Joe lets himself close his eyes. When he speaks, his voice is scratchy.

“I close my eyes and see the worst. You on that floor. Andy bleeding out.”

Nicky hums, softly. “It’s okay, Joe. We’re okay. And,” he pauses, “It’s okay to have those thoughts.”

He cups a gentle hand around Joe’s throat and swirls his fingertips against his scalp with the other. “Imagine your mind is a river,” he says after a moment. His beautiful, lilting voice is like honey. “You are on the banks of that river. Your thoughts float along it. You see them come, but you do not judge.”

Nicky returns to rubbing slow circles into Joe’s temples. “All your thoughts are fine. They are not good, or bad. They just exist. You watch them float closer on the river, and you watch them float away.” Nicky’s warm, broad palm comes up to cover Joe’s closed eyes, deepening the darkness Joe can see. “If they reappear, that is fine too. They are just thoughts. Not good. Not bad.” Joe knows all this, on some level, but it is one thing to know it intellectually, and another to have Nicky murmuring it to him from above, warm and comforting.

“Breathe with me now, sweetheart. Do not stop until I say stop. In,” and Joe breathes in synchrony with Nicky, holds it for several beats with Nicky, “and out,” and breathes out with Nicky, long and slow. They wait a moment. “In,” Nicky says, low and smooth, “and out.”

He can feel Nicky’s stomach expanding against the crown of his head with every inhale. Can feel Nicky’s toothpaste-minty breath ruffle past his chest hair with every exhale.

Nicky has stopped speaking, has stopped counting. Together, they breathe, in and out.

And soon, between one breath and the next:

Joe falls asleep.

**Author's Note:**

> I am pretty proud of how this one turned out! Let me know what you think! =D


End file.
